project

iPhone 6 bracket for car

iPhone 6 bracket for car

Andrew

My wife’s Honda Civic had a small pocket/cubby with a flip down door just below the stereo. On a recent road trip we found the door to be a good platform for an iPhone 6 running Waze, but it kept slipping off of the door. While a folded up napkin did an ok job of keeping it from slipping off, I thought “I can over engineer this!” so I did.

The idea was to make a 3D printed bracket that could be double-stick-taped to the door, allowing it to close as normal, but holding the phone when opened.

All of the prototypes from the first at the top to the final at the bottom. The red ones were poorly printed copies of the final.
First, second, and third prototypes.
Screenshot of the third and final design as seen in OnShape.

We both have Spigen bumper cases for our phones, so measurements were made for that. The design was completed using OnShape (this being my 2nd real thing modeled and 3D printed using the program).

Prototype 1 was much too big and clunky to allow the door to close, and the tolerances were a little tight for the phone even though it “fit.”

Two copies of the first prototype of phone holder.
First prototype in action. The phone fit, but was a bit tight.

Prototype 2 was much smaller (and eliminated the end stops just to see if it would fit), but this still proved too big; the height of the base was too tall, as was the height of the back support.

Second prototype of the phone holder. This print was OK at best, with a first layer that didn’t stick well to the bed.
Second prototype profile view. The base didn’t stick well to the bed during printing.
Prototype 2 being tested.

Prototype 3 reduced the thickness of the walls and floor greatly, and added the end stops back in. The design was no longer symmetrical (like the first prototype) so a quick reflect was used in OnShape to make the second bracket.

I tried printing the final pieces twice in ABS on a 3D printer that recently had a hotend nozzle clog… They didn’t turn out too well even after modifying the settings.
First mediocre print of the third and final design.
Left and right sides of the final phone holders. These printed better than the red ones as I switched to another printer.
Final phone holders. These printed better than the red ones as I switched to another printer.
The left side of the final phone holder.

The third design ended up working and fitting great. The door closes and the design is less clunky in general.

Double-stick foam tape was used to attach the brackets to the door.
The phone leans back slightly since the door doesn’t open ‘flat’ – this helps keep it leaning against the dash and should be secure. I don’t think a Civic has enough acceleration to have it fall down.
Double-stick foam tape was used to attach the brackets to the door.

Download a Zipped .STL of the final prototype here: Spigen_phone_holder_V3.stl

You may also find the file on the OnShape website here.

48″ x 48″ CNC router and VCarve stools

48″ x 48″ CNC router and VCarve stools

Andrew

Nova Labs recently bought a ShopSabre RC-4 CNC router for the wood shop. A few copies of VCarve are on computers at the makerspace, allowing members to setup their tool path.

Some of the regulars on Wednesday night decided to do a “one-night-build,” or a project we could start and finish in an evening. I started thinking of ideas that we could do on the new tool (mostly so I could learn to use it).

We landed on building some stools downloaded from the open source furniture website OpenDesk. Most designs on the site are setup for 4×8′ sheets of material but we found the Johann Stool from Johann Aussage would fit easily on our half sheets of plywood.

Adobe Illustrator was used to modify the designs for the actual thickness of the plywood we bought, and to eliminate some decoration.

Starting to work through the setup in VCarve.

After those design considerations were fixed, we used VCarve to setup the tool path. They have a a makerspace license allowing for people to use the software at home in basically a trial mode, but save the G-code from the properly licensed software at the makerspace.

3D representation of the toolpath from VCarve

A .25″ end mill was used for everything, including the holes for pins during assembly.

Part-way through cutting the first stool from the 3/4″ plywood.
Part-way through cutting the first stool from the 3/3″ plywood.

Final cleanup was done with a 1/8″ roundover router bit on the regular router table. The laser cutter was used to engrave the NovaLabs logo on the top of the seat, and a credit to the designer was etched (vector cutting at fast speed/low power) onto the bottom.

Johann Stool partially assembled (using nails instead of 1/4″ dowels to hold the sides on).
Top and bottom of the finished Johann Stools.
Nova Labs logo laser engraved on the stool tops.
Vector etching (light cut) on the bottom of the stools with a shout-out to the designer.
Finished and assembled Johann Stools with Nova Labs logo.

 

 

Vulgar Napkin Holders

Vulgar Napkin Holders

Andrew

A colleague/friend of mine got her first solo apartment was lamenting that she was needed a bunch of household necessities, including a napkin holder. Since she hadn’t been in a while, I suggested suggested she could make her own at Nova Labs. Annoyed, she told me to make her one; I thought the best gift was one she’d regret asking for…

The first thoughts included some messy clipart faces (think Garbage Pail Kids stickers), but I quickly settled on some nice type and alliteration.

The design. Font is Avenir Next Ultra Light
Edge view of the napkin holder

The design for the napkin holder itself was whipped up in Illustrator using a simple tabbed box type design.

Production happened using the laser cutter at Nova Labs.

Cutting the first napkin holder on Mongo, Nova Labs’ 100w CO2 laser cutter.
Before pulling the parts out of the laser cutter.
Parts after a light sanding on the downdraft sanding table.

A less vulgar version was created for a neighbor who commented on Facebook that they wanted one, but would have to wait 10 years before their kids could be exposed to the original!

Family friendly napkin holder.
Family friendly napkin holder.
Engraved cube Kickstarter backer gifts

Engraved cube Kickstarter backer gifts

Andrew

Backer Gifts

The Nova Labs Kickstarter campaign ended successfully back in early 2015. One of the higher backer levels was for the backers’ name on a wall in the space, but we also planned on sending them a plaque.

I didn’t expect that someone would put 4 mounting standoffs on their wall, so I thought that something more like a paperweight for the backer’s desk or bookcase would be better.

The Cube

At the fall 2015 Adobe MAX conference, a booth for Universal Laser allowed attendees to make wooden stamp blocks using Adobe’s Creative Cloud Shared Libraries to get files from workstations to the folks running the laser. As the exhibition floor was shutting down they were handing out the remaining cubes, so I grabbed a few of the blanks to play with at home. I thought the 2″ cubes could be a good format for the backer reward.

Not wanting to settle on the first material idea I had, I also ordered a clear acrylic cube to test on.

In the end the acrylic seemed way too ‘corporate gift’ looking, with the birch wood being way warmer, especially after giving the final pieces a coat of tung oil.

Setup and production

Cubes in the Laser Cut software
Test cube and production cubes waiting for engraving (note the numbers on each face so I could keep track of order and “this end up” orientation).
First pass on the production run.

The key to engraving these easily was setting up a row of seven 2″ squares that were lightly cut into a sacrificial material. The blocks were then put on these lines ensuring accurate placement of each faces’ design.

Fortunately the position of “home” doesn’t change as you adjust the Z-height (you need to do the light guide cut with the laser focused on the paper or foamcore, and then drop the bed down to accommodate the height of the block.)

Masking tape was used to reduce the discoloration of the wood due to smoke from the engrave, but I’m not sure if it was worth the time needed to remove all of the tiny counters of the text, vs sanding with a belt or disk sander.

Finished engraving.
Tape off of the wood cube, but still on the acrylic.

As it was, the wood cubes were still sanded down after removing the tape. They were eventually finished with tung oil after doing a few tests with other finishes such as varnish and shellac.

Finished wood and acrylic cubes.
Sign for the laser cutter room

Sign for the laser cutter room

Andrew
The sign before lifting it from the laser. The stencil font kept was perfect for this type of sign.

In a shared space like Nova Labs, it is important to leave things better than you found them (you should read the listserv thread this past week about the router table being left messy).

The laser room suffers its fair share of mess, so I made a reminder sign for the wall above the workstation.

If it reminds even a few people to vacuum up their little dot cutout debris or gets them to put back the key, I guess it will be worth it.

All of the letters left over after lifting up the sign.
People always forget to lift up the honeycomb bed and clean up their little circle cutouts.

 

Over-achieving embroidered party favors for kid’s birthday

Over-achieving embroidered party favors for kid’s birthday

Andrew

 

Custom embroidered wash cloths
Homemade, personalized, embroidered wash cloths were definitely overkill for a 2-year-old’s birthday celebration at school.

As a relatively new parent several years ago, I was shocked to learn that not only would the birthday kid bring cupcakes or a treat or whatever to school, but they would also bring party favors for the class. Presents for the other kids? And we’re not even hosting a party to get presents in return?

Our little one had a birthday later in the year, so we had several months of bringing home goodie bags of candy and small plastic toys; like we needed any more of those things… I wanted to do better. Up the ante. Go overboard.

We had recently purchased a new-to-us sewing machine with embroidery attachment, and I thought this was a great opportunity to go overboard with gifts for her classmates. Instead of junk, how about something personalized and useful? Every kid needs baths, and washcloths would be easy to embroider on since they are sturdy (I think I used a wash-away stabilizer just to be sure).

I came up with a design using an outline of a duck, and a font that was built into the digitizing software I had. It would embroider quickly since it had a relatively low stitch count.

Was it worth it? Meh…

Despite getting the washcloths for cheap at Costco, it still took a ton of time. But I’m sure they got more use than a plastic lizard, bouncy ball, or tiny rainbow Slinky, so at least there’s that!

Embroidered wash cloths and Brother ULT2003D sewing/embroidery machine
Assortment of embroidered wash cloths for a 2 year old’s birthday party/goody bag.

 

Slotted Christmas Ornament test

Andrew
Finished Christmas ornament
Finished and assembled Christmas ornament

Last year our team made (well, I made, but the team hosted the decorating party) slot-together Christmas trees for our internal clients.

We wanted to see if there was something else to make them in 2015, so we brainstormed over email. Someone presented a sketch of a Christmas ornament shaped item, and knowing I can whip out this sort of thing I went ahead and made the prototype. Plus, I hadn’t actually cut anything from this particular shade of red 1/8″ acrylic, so it was a good test.

In the end we didn’t do anything because of heavy workload in December, but that’s how it goes sometimes.

Oh, and I hope the Brand folks at work don’t see sad Inky made from the scrap cutouts. It is definitely not on-brand!

Cut out and waiting assembly.
Do not leave the extra pieces with a designer late at night.
Remains of the protective tape.
In disarray.

 

Better base for Stomp Rocket

Andrew

Stomp Rocket with a beefy launch towerStomp Rockets for Christmas!

And the Stomp Rockets have lights to boot! Pretty awesome if it weren’t so cold outside…

One problem with the set is that the base is pretty flimsy. It would move all over the place as they used it, and it was hard to keep the rocket pointed more-or-less straight up.

Having no there really pressing projects to work on, I whipped up an Apollo era looking launch tower for the Stomp Rocket launcher/tube assembly.

Overkill?

You bet. When I showed the pictures at work someone commented “do your kids realize that most dads don’t do this sort of thing for toys?” Of course they don’t, but it’s fun for me so I do it anyway.

Everything was laser cut. Material was some 1/4″ MDF, but it cut really easily. The base was another piece of 1/4″MDF, but it was wayyyy different and required multiple passes, and had a ton of charring on the edge. I cleaned that edge up on a belt sander.

The basic shape came from the BoxMaker site, and the pattern was created in Illustrator.

Boeing 747 toy

Boeing 747 toy

Andrew

747 laser cut modelMy daughter had asked about making a plane at “your workshop” (aka Nova Labs) and I thought I’d test one method before I brought her along.

This Boeing 747 model started from a vector 3-view drawing I found online. I cleaned it up in Illustrator and prepared cutouts for 5mm wood.

Cut on the laser cutter at Nova Labs.

Definitely less than an hour start to finish.

I think the next try will be to make something a little more 3d by layering pieces of material (I can then get the relative position of the wings and horizontal stabilizer in the right place).

747 laser cut model

747 laser cut model

Remixed 747 from a reader

In November of 2020, I got an email from Chris asking if I had the file for this, as he wanted to turn into into Christmas tree ornaments for people at his company in the aviation industry. I sent it over to him.

He ended up remixing it a bit and making the following for his team (logos blurred at his request).

747'ish Christmas ornament on a tree
Remixed 747 model, turned into Christmas ornament gifts for Chris’s company.
Voyager gold record inspired playground accessory

Voyager gold record inspired playground accessory

Andrew

Voyager Gold Records on a playgroundWe recently built a playground in the backyard (expect a separate post with some time-lapse photography we took during the process), but we had to make one modification to the plans; One of two slides was omitted since it would have required us to extend the new retaining wall further than we really wanted to deal with, and it was already plenty of work…

Fast forward to the ‘finished’ playground, and we had a big hole where the slide should have attached. Not good considering the platform height was 5′ and the kids are still little.

We discussed several options for covering the opening, but most were just too boring sounding. I had my mind set on laser engraving a clear acrylic ‘window’ and mounting it in some sort of frame. Eventually my wife said something about space (I’m not even sure what exactly anymore), but I was soon looking at Wikipedia for information on the Voyager spacecrafts, launched in 1977, and their Gold Records.

I’m glad I found the tongue and groove cedar planks at Loews as it made it really easy to mount the acrylic panel. Hopefully the rest of the photos and captions speak for themselves.

Overall, an interesting and nerdy addition to the playground, and hopefully one that the kids will appreciate someday (my initial explanation of ‘there is a copy of this on the FURTHEST HUMAN THING FROM EARTH’ was met with puzzled looks).

Lastly, here’s a quick video showing the start of the engraving process on Nova Labs’ laser cutter: